


The blue of his eyes grants freedom

by darkgreenwater



Category: Outlander (TV), Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Genre: nothing explicitly romantic, probably more friendship than anything in fact, re-telling of two scenes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-23
Updated: 2019-12-23
Packaged: 2021-02-18 03:21:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21920971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darkgreenwater/pseuds/darkgreenwater
Summary: A re-telling of two moments from Jamie's point of view: When John "confesses" his interest in Jamie in Ardsmuir prison, and their reunion in Jamaica.
Relationships: Jamie Fraser/Lord John Grey
Comments: 7
Kudos: 48





	The blue of his eyes grants freedom

**Author's Note:**

> I just liked to imagine what Jamie must have thought and felt in these moments, and this is where my mind went. Please let me know your thoughts in the comments, if you have any feedback to give!

There was a moment - however short, bitter, cut brief - in which Jamie wanted to reach out and _hurt_. He wanted to throw himself at John and grab and choke and pull and beat until the man sacked to the floor, unconscious. To see him glide from his hands, his warm blood mixing with that of Jamie's own knuckles-

The darkness Randall had planted years ago was just one balled fist away from spilling over. Jamie closed his eyes. He wouldn't let it. Not now. Not ever. 

Grey's hand still rested on Jamie's but now without any confidence. It merely hovered over the back of Jamie's hand, a shadow growing cooler by the second, fainter. John must have been aware of the change in Jamie's bearing. Surely the newfound rigidity in the Scot's shoulders didn't escape him. 

Lord John retrieved his hand. "I must have been mistaken."

Jamie forced himself to look at Grey. For the flicker of a second he thought to see a face - it was gone before it could do any harm. Dead green eyes gave way to blue ones, tender, loving - not the scarring kind Jamie had come to know. Instead, though, genuine feeling and concern. 

"I apologize." Grey said, and the shadow of guilt befell his soft features. Jamie wanted to cherish the purity of it, for he felt its trueness could drive the ghosts out of him. The two men held each other's gaze for a moment, each of them lost in his own thoughts and giving this stare his own meaning. Just a second longer, Jamie wanted to say, and then a second after that. Just one moment longer for me to lose myself in your stare and rid myself of all this darkness. Let your blue reflect my own and cleanse it of its black spots. 

But Grey looked away then. Something in Jamie fell. 

* * *

When they meet again, he cannot precisely say what had shifted, what had changed between them. He looks at John and can scarcely believe that this is reality, he is here, standing there, across the room, chatting to some woman. He wants to run towards him and throw his arms around the man, ask about William and lose himself in the comforting smell of John's grassy scent that he had carried all the way from home, Scotland. 

Instead he cannot move. John, upon spotting him, doesn't move either. They just stare and it seems oddly familiar, the feeling of longing to cleanse himself, the need for one second and then just one more, just to be safe. Jamie couldn't rid himself of it yet so he kept it buried since the last time Grey had touched him. But now is the chance, if only he takes that first step - 

Grey moves first. Turns deliberately and slowly, carefully sets one foot in front of the other, eyes wide and mouth wider, a surprised smile spreading on his face. He takes his wig off and clenches it in his hands like a hat, his knuckles white with anxious strength. 

The two men walk towards each other in a civilized pace, only their faces betray their inner turmoil. The quiet dialogue that their hearts are wrapped up in as they gravitate towards each other like magnets, slow and steady. 

But Jamie loses his patience and speeds up and - as if he had waited for permission - John does too. Their arms barely outstretched, hinting at a desire to hug but stifling it in a swift shake when their hands finally meet, and each of them feels the other's touch burning into his own palm for different reasons. 

People around them murmur but they don't notice; Jamie is too wrapped up in John's clear, purifying stare, the emotion of selfless love visibly evident in it, and Jamie is finally ridding himself of it all. The prison's walls, the phantom pains, lavender mixed with the smell of blood, the voice and hands that had etched themselves into his soul, even the very scars on his back; Freedom is here at last, just in reach.

John doesn't know about any of this. John doesn't know of Randall, doesn't know of the fear, has never seen the "masterpiece". He looks away, again too early - but this time, only this time, it might have been enough. For this moment frozen in all time and space, Jamie is free of the past and doesn't know of the burden that is the future. There is no concern or trouble and John doesn't know this, but right now he grants Jamie rest. 


End file.
